The sun rises,
casting its light across an improbable landscape
[peaceful music]
[ravens calling]
A puzzle of canyons, cliffs
and baked red earth
This land appears timeless, unchanging,
yet the movement of each drop of water
slightly alters its face, cutting into the accumulated sediment of 300 million
years
The Colorado Plateau reveals a story of transformation
a story told in rock layers that echo
ancient seas, coastal mudflats
braided stream beds, and windblown dunes
hundreds of feet thick.
Clues to this past lie preserved in stone,
ripples of sand, or the splatter of raindrops that fell when dinosaurs walked the earth.
In what is now desert,
shallow seas advanced and retreated many times,
their ebb and flow leaving behind
thick deposits of beach sands, salt
and marine limestone.
Great rivers
moved tons of sediment from eroding mountain ranges
to low-lying areas.
Pressure from accumulating layers and
filtering water converted the buried sediments
into solid rock.
This mass of began to erode toward its present form
about 10 million years ago when regional
uplifts elevated the plateau and gave birth to the Colorado
river system, slowly carving the deeply incised
canyons of the Green and Colorado rivers.
Thousands of smaller tributary canyons formed
as flash floods scoured and deepened small washes
Great blocks of rock,
fractured by faults, eroded
into needles, fins, and arches
This intricate landscape of sculpted rock
sets the stage for life in canyon country.
Life has adapted to this desert.
Though its vital signs may be difficult to detect,
even the soil,
bound by microorganisms into a knobby, black crust
lives and breathes.
Summer daytime temperatures frequently exceed
100 degrees Fahrenheit,
yet may drop as much as 50 degrees when night falls.
Winter brings freezing temperatures and light snowfall
[peaceful music]
[thunder crashing]
This dry region receives only about 9 inches of rain a year.
Most comes in the form a brief, violent thunderstorms
causing rapid runoff and flash floods.
[water roaring]
[thunder crashes]
[birds singing]
When a rare, wet spring brings heavy rains,
wildflowers cover the fields.
Plants and animals have developed a variety of strategies
for coping with these extremes:
small or waxy leaves,
deep tap roots, or the ability to store water.
[birds singing]
Others live near seeps,
or complete their entire life cycles during the spring,
when temperatures are cooler.
Adaptations also help animals endure this desert environment.
Large ears radiate heat.
Fur or feathers reflect the sun.
Nocturnal behavior provides escape from the intense heat of the day.
[birds singing]
Larger animals rely on their mobility to reach water sources.
Mule deer and bighorn sheep
may walk many miles to reach a river or a rain-filled pothole
Ancient rock art panels hint at the relationship
between the environment and the people who made this area their home
for thousands of years.
The mobile hunter-gatherer societies of the archaic people
gave way over time to the sedentary,
agricultural society of the ancestral Puebloans.
These people left Canyonlands almost 700 years ago,
probably because of persistent drought.
Other Native Americans, and later trappers, used this area as a seasonal
hunting ground
but not a permanent home.
The Colorado River and the surrounding country remained largely
unmapped until the river expeditions led by Major John Wesley Powell
in the 1860s and '70s.
"Wherever we look
"there is but a wilderness of rocks,
"deep gorges where the rivers are lost below cliffs,
"and towers and pinnacles,
"and 10,000 strangely carved forms in
"every direction, and beyond them,
mountains, blending with clouds."
As the West began to fill, ranchers pastured
cattle and sheep in the more accessible valleys and canyons.
The remains of cowboy camps still retain some of their original flavor
and should be left undisturbed.
The economic incentive provided by the uranium boom of the 1950s
opened this area to modern travel.
Prospectors and miners
built roads that crisscrossed the terrain.
As travel into this area increased, so did public awareness of its unusual beauty.
Canyonlands National Park was established in 1964,
preserving hundreds of square miles of remote wilderness
The Green and Colorado rivers divide the national park into three distinct regions:
the Island in the Sky, the Needles, and the Maze.
Island in the Sky, the most accessible area of the park,
allows for a leisurely drives to panoramic views
that dwarf human history.
Looking down on the White Rim Road,
we follow a rugged four-wheel-drive and mountain biking route
that traces the shoreline of an ocean that's been dry for millions of years
The Needles district in the southeastern part of Canyonlands
provides hikers and four-wheel drivers with a much closer look at the park's
mosaic of colors, shapes, and forms.
Primitive roads and trails weave through
colorful sandstone formations.
[peaceful music]
A confusing network of canyons and mesas,
the Maze remains the least accessible area of Canyonlands.
With no paved or two-wheel-drive roads, and few marked trails
this wild and remote region draws visitors looking for a challenging,
extended wilderness experience.
Deep river canyons, with no bridges to span their great width, separate
the Maze, Needles, and Island in the Sky.
A barrier to cars and hikers, these rivers act as natural travel corridors
for canoes, rafts, and kayaks.
Inside the park, the Colorado and Green rivers remain calm
until they join forces at the Confluence.
Below, the enlarged Colorado rushes through Cataract Canyon
with tremendous speed and power.
[water roaring]
This landscape appears tough, invulnerable,
yet even seemingly harmless actions
damage this special place.
Fragile living soil crusts can be crushed by the tread
of careless hikers,
four-wheel drivers, or mountain bikers.
Pothole ecosystems may be polluted by the oils from human hands.
Archaeological sites are vulnerable to souvenir collecting
and the spread of graffiti.
Visitors who come to appreciate this wilderness of rock
are essential to its protection.
Preservation of the desert is about listening
as it tells its story of change, uninterrupted,
holding its creatures to a standard of survival that is no more strict
nor lenient than nature intends:
its rivers flowing freely,
heavy with silt,
displaying a field of stars
against the black of night, now
and forever.